Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/217

Rh nations, and, far from diminishing their effects, tlie severity of his ministry and the gravity of his eloquence served rather to cnchanee their splendour. His first sermons met with prodigious success, and all voices were raised in loud applause of the preacher. Madame de Sevigne, sharing the universal enthusiasm, wrote to her daughter that &quot; she had never heard anything more beautiful, more noble, more astonishing, than the sermons of Father Bourdaloue.&quot; Louis XIV. also wished to hear him, and the new preacher was in consequence sent to court, where he preached during Advent in 1G70, and during Lent in 1G72 ; and he was after wards called for the Lents of 1G74, 1G75, 1G80, and 1G82, and for the Advents of 1G84, 1GS9, and 1G93. This was a thing unheard of before, the same preacher being rarely called three times to court. Bourdaloue, however, appeared there ten times, and was always received with the same ardour. Louis XIV. said that &quot; he loved better to hear the repetitions of Bourdaloue than the novelties of any one else.&quot; After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes he was sent to Languedoc to preach to the Protestants, and con firm the newly-converted in the Catholic faith ; and in this delicate mission he managed to reconcile the interests of his ministry with the sacred rights of humanity. He preached at Montpellier in 1G8G with the greatest success, Catholics and Protestants being all equally eager to recog nize in this eloquent missionary the apostle of truth and of virtue. In the last years of his life Bourdaloue abandoned the pulpit, and devoted himself to charitable assemblies, hospitals, and prisons, where his pathetic discourses and conciliatory manners were very effective. He had the art of adapting his style and his reasonings to the condition and he understanding of those to whom he addressed either counsel or consolation. Simple with the simple, erudite with the learned, and a dialectician with sophists and disputants, he came off with honour in all the contests in which zeal for religion, the duties of his station, and love of mankind led him to engage. Equally relished by the great and by the commonalty, by men of piety, and by people of the world, he exercised till his death in 1704 a sort of empire over all minds; and this ascendency he owed as much to the gentleness of his manners as to the force of his reasoning. &quot; His conduct,&quot; says one of his con temporaries, &quot; is the best answer that can be made to the Lettres Provinciates.&quot; No consideration was ever capable of altering his frankness or corrupting his probity. Bourdaloue may with justice be regarded as the reformer of the pulpit and the founder of Christian eloquence among the French. That which distinguishes him from other preachers is the force of his reasoning, and the solidity of his proofs. Never did Christian orator infuse into his discourses more majesty, dignity, energy, and grandeur. Like Corneille, he has been charged with overlabouring his diction, and accumulating idea upon idea with a needless superfluity of illustration of speaking more to the under standings than to the hearts of his auditors, and sometimes enervating his eloquence with the too frequent use of divi sions and subdivisions. But even in subscribing to these criticisms, which are to a certain extent well founded, it, is impossible not to admire the inexhaustible fecundity of his plans the happy talent vdut imperatoria virtus which he possessed, of disposing his reasonings in the order best calculated to command victory the logical skill with which he excludes sophisms, contradictions, and paradoxes the art with which he lays the foundations of our duty in our interest and, finally, the inestimable secret of converting the details of manners and habits into so many proofs of iis subject. Parallels have often been drawn between Bourdaloue and Massilhm ; but the talents of these great pulpit orators lay in different directions, and they may, therefore, be more fitly contrasted than compared. &quot; Be tween Massillon and Bossuet,&quot; says Lord Brougham, whose judgment of Bossuet errs, however, on the side of severity, (Works, vol. vii.), &quot;and at a great distance certainly above the latter, stands Bourdaloue, whom some have deemed Massillon s superior, but of whom an illustrious critic (D Alembert, Eloye de Massillon) has more justly said that it was his greatest glory to have left the supremacy cf Massillon still in dispute. It is certain that he displays a fertility of resources, an exuberance of topics, whether for observation or argument, not equalled by almost any other orator, sacred or profane.&quot; If Massillon is now read with a more lively interest, he owes that advantage to the charms of his style rather than to the force of his reason ing. Among the critics of the present day, the prefer ence is unhesitatingly given to the rival of Uacine, to the painter of the heart, to the author of the discourse on the small number of the elect ; but if we consult the contemporaries of Massillon himself, we shall lind that they assign him only the second rank. According to them Bourdaloue preached to the men of a vigorous and masculine age Massillon to those of a period remarkable for its effeminacy. Bourdaloue raised himself to the level of the great truths of religion Massillon conformed himself to the weakness of the men with whom he lived. The bishop of Clermont will always be read ; but if the simple Jesuit could raise his commanding voice from the tomb, and again roll forth a majestic stream of divine truth, the courtly accents of his rival would no longer be heard, and the charms of his diction would be forgotten. The first part of his celebrated Passion, in which he proves that the death of the Son of God is the triumph of His power, has generally been considered as the great masterpiece of Christian eloquence. Bossuet has said nothing stronger or more elevated. The second part, however, is inferior to the first, though considered by itself alike beautiful and convincing. The discourses of Bourdaloue have been described by a celebrated French critic as embodying in them a complete course of theology. This is perhaps going a little too far ; but still their general merit is very great, and for nothing are they more distinguished than their comprehensiveness. The diction of this great preacher is always natural, clear, and correct, sometimes deficient in animation, but without vacuity or languor, and generally relieved by outbreaking^ of much force and originality. Two editions of Bourdaloue s works were published at Paris by I ere Bretonneau, a Jesuit, one in 1G vols. 8vo, 1707-34, and the other, from which the editions of Ixouen, Toulouse, and Amsterdam were afterwards printed, in 18 vols. 12mo, 1709-34. The Versailles edition appeared in 1812-13, in 1G vols. Svo. It is much inferior to the former. Of recent editions, the best are those of 1822-2G, 17 vols. Svo; of 1833-34; of 1840, 3 torn. 8vo ; of 1847, 18 vols. ; and of 18G4, 4 vols. The Sermons ineditfs de Bourdaloue, published by the Abbe Sicard in 1810, are apocryphal. (See Vie de P. Bourdaloue, par Madame de Prigny, 1705 ; Esprit de Bourdaloue, par 1 Abbd de la Porte; St Arnaud, Notice sur P. Bourdaloue, 18G2.)  BOURG, the chief town of the department of Ain i:i France, and formerly the capital of the province of Bresse, is situated 27 miles N.E. of Lyons, on the banks of the lleyssouze, a tributary of the Saone. Its streets are narrow and crooked, and the whole town is very irregularly laid out. Among its public buildings are a new prefecture, a tncatre, a library (with upwards of 22,000 volumes), an asylum, a foundling hospital, a lyceum, and a theological seminary. In the suburb of St Nicholas is the famous church of Notre D.ime de Brou, which was built in the first half of the Gth century by Margaret of Austria, and is remarkable 